Where do I put all the baby stuff?

It probably comes as no surprise to you that I hate clutter. In my head, clutter is equal to disorganization, and disorganization is equal to having my hand slammed in a car door. All consuming, painful and leads to a string of expletives the likes of which my child should not hear (even at seven months). I’m a constant tidier — sometimes absently picking things up and putting them away before people are even finished using them. I’m annoying, I know, and I’m alright with that.

But with Sophie came a level of clutter I couldn’t have possibly understood before we brought her home from the hospital. The baby items we did buy (read: that I permitted Blaine to force me to buy so the kid wasn’t sleeping Thumbelina-style in a dresser drawer upon arriving at our apartment) were stowed away neatly in cupboards, the house was spotless, the mail sorted, the laundry done. That lasted approximately 2.5 seconds. Out came the various baby requirements, including the swing and, within a few weeks, a hilarious egg-shaped vibrating seat called a Mamaroo, toys, the breastfeeding pillow, etcetera, etcetera, ETCETERA. And even then I was fine, because at the end of the night, I’d just tidy up, stowing things in a toy box behind the couch and breathing a sigh of relief at the sign of my clutter-free area rug. My friend Allie came for dinner when Soph was already asleep one night and said, “You can hardly even tell that a baby lives here!” (Soph must have heard because the screaming started minutes later.)

But now the clutter has reached defcon 1. She’s outgrowing things left, right and centre, and my labeled-by-age, under-the-bed storage bins are packed to the brim. She has long since said goodbye to the Mamaroo and is on the brink of kicking the swing to the curb. But the question is, what the hell do I do with this stuff now? We hope to have more kids, so I don’t want to toss or sell anything, but the space in our apartment is limited and the stuff seems to be multiplying at an obnoxious rate. Now I know why people are so quick to offer items up once they’ve finished with the baby business — not just because they are lovely people, but so they can reclaim their storage space. I’m on to you, mommies out there, I know.

It seems the home-buying discussion needs to be put back on the table sometime soon. I admit, I think about it often and wonder what body parts we’ll have to sell to afford something in Toronto, but that’s a topic for another day. For now, I’m mentally reorganizing closets and trying to find space for the friggin’ light-up playmat Soph is snubbing this week.